"The
Sustainable IT Lecture Series is suitable for
use in tertiary education for ICT practitioners,
engineering and related disciplines. The lecture
notes would also be useful for self study by
practitioners interested in learning about energy
saving techniques. TNEP and HP are to be commended
for making the material available free for educational
use via an open access licence. TNEP have provided
the opportunity for Australia to lead the world
in reducing the impact of ICT on climate change.
It is now for ICT educators and practitioners
to take up the challenge."Tom Worthington,
Chair of the ACS Green ICT Group, and Adjunct
Senior Lecturer, Australian National University

"I
found the Lecture Series very comprehensive,
well presented and thoroughly researched. So
a big well done with the effort that has gone
into developing the course material."Scott Evans, IT
Consultant, Pitcher Partners Consulting and
Subcommittee Member of the AIIA Sustainable
Futures Forum

Funding
for the development of the publication 'Sustainable
IT: Reducing Carbon Footprint and Materials Waste
in the IT Environment' has been provided by Hewlett-Packard
(HP) Australia.

Sustainable IT: Reducing Carbon Footprint and Materials
Waste in the IT Environment

Sustainable
IT, also known as Green IT, is a
multi-component approach to establishing and sustainably
operating an IT business function. Sustainable
IT is becoming increasingly important in the eyes
of many organisations. A survey[1] of organisations of all sizes across both
the government and corporate sectors found that
80 percent of IT decision makers believe that
implementing Sustainable IT in their organisations
is important and 49 percent cite positive reputation
as one of the greatest benefits. However, 51 percent
of IT decision makers cite cost as a barrier to
implementing Sustainable IT technologies, 25 percent
cite complexity of implementation and maintenance,
and 21 percent cite potential disruptions to current
IT systems.

This Lectures Series offers a solution that addresses
many barriers to Sustainable IT while optimising
costs and minimising negative environmental impact.
The focus is on the product and service provision
components of Sustainable IT. Specifically, these
lectures describe a holistic, end-to-end solution
for IT systems of medium and large enterprises.
This solution consists of:

Product
service systems: also known as sustainable
services and systems and eco-efficient
services.[2] There are several product service systems
topologies. These Lectures describe the use
services topology[3] as applied to IT products and services.
In this topology, customers purchase the services
of some or all IT hardware and software products
through leasing, renting, sharing or pooling
while the vendor maintains the ownership, responsibility
and stewardship of the products. The aims are
to remove aged technology with minimal environmental
impact while customers maximise their investment
on their IT systems. Vendors can be either an
external company or the customer’s IT
business function, operating largely independently.

Sustainable IT products:
i.e. those items of client and data centre equipment
that are resource efficient to manufacture,
transport and operate, and have low-to-no adverse
health impacts on people and the environment
throughout their lifecycles.

These lectures draw from information regarding
product service systems and sustainable IT products.
They also draw from information regarding the
development and implementation of several previously
and currently popular IT service models that are
relevant to successful product service systems,
including: IT service management (ITSM),[4] also known as service-oriented IT
management (SOITM); service-oriented
architecture (SOA),[5] also known as service-oriented computing
(SOC); and IT leasing.[6]

Since an IT system is a large and heavily integrated
system with many components, a change in any component
of the system will impact on several other components.
Thus, it is important that decisions are informed
by an accurate understanding and assessment of
the impacts on the whole IT system. Hence, readers
may be interested in learning about the business
components of Sustainable IT, which are beyond
the scope of these lectures. The business components
are particularly relevant to decision makers in
enterprises and include:

Sustainable
IT: Reducing Carbon Footprint and Materials Waste
in the IT Environment

Lecture
1: Drivers and Benefits of Sustainable IT

The
aim of this lecture is to discuss the drivers
and benefits of Sustainable IT, particularly
for the customer. Drivers and benefits range
through business, economic, environmental and
legislative domains.

The
aim of this lecture is to discuss product service
systems, their barriers and lessons from past
implementations, as well as the opportunities
to reduce energy and materials consumption in
packaging and equipment through end-of-life
processing.

The
aim of this lecture is to discuss the strategies,
activities and actions upon which customers
and vendors should focus in order to successfully
transition to, maintain and promote their Sustainable
IT solutions at the organisation and industry
level.

Text Book:
In the preparation of any education program, and
in particular an introductory course, it is a
challenge to cover all possible questions or uncertainties
that may arise during delivery of the material.
In response to this challenge, this course is
supported by the text book developed by our team,
namely 'Hargroves, K. and Smith, M.H. (2005) The
Natural Advantage of Nations: Business Opportunities,
Innovation and Governance in the 21st Century,
Earthscan, London'. References and optional reading
material is provided for each lecture for those
who wish to explore the content in more detail.

Acknowledgements

The
Sustainable IT Lecture Series was produced by The
Natural Edge Project using funds provided by Hewlett-Packard
(HP) Australia. The development of this publication
has been supported by the contribution of non-staff
related on-costs and administrative support by the
Centre for Environment and Systems Research (CESR)
at Griffith University, under the supervision of Professor
Bofu Yu, and both the Fenner School of Environment
and Society and Engineering Department at the Australian
National University, under the supervision of Professor
Stephen Dovers.

Expert review and mentoring: Expert review
and mentoring for the Sustainable IT Lecture Series
has been received from Mike Dennis, The Australian
National University; Scott Evans, Pitcher Partners
Consultants and the Australian Information Industry
Association; Bruce Scott, Griffith University; Chenobu
Thong, Hewlett-Packard Australia; Michael Wagner,
Hewlett-Packard Australia; Malcolm Wolski, Griffith
University; and Tom Worthington, The Australian National
University and the Australian Computer Society.

[4]
In ITSM, vendors help customers manage their IT resources,
usually through a framework for IT activities. ITSM
can be more effective through a vendor since many
customers lack the expertise to manage large, complex
IT systems.(Back)

[5]
SOA is a software architecture in which software services
are accessible to customers over a network, usually
the Internet, while being hosted externally. Customers
specify the software services required and vendors
make them available.(Back)

[6]
In IT leasing, customers lease IT products from vendors.
The vendors maintain ownership and responsibility
of the products.(Back)

The
Natural Edge Project Engineering Sustainable Solutions
Program is supported by the Australian National
Commission
for UNESCO through the International Relations Grants
Program of the Department of Foreign Affairs and
Trade.

TNEP Core Partners in Research, Education and Policy Development

Website created as an in-kind donation, and now serviced by Izilla Pty Ltd, with hosting provided by Melbourne IT.

Between 2007 and 2010 TNEP was provided in-kind administrative hosting by Griffith University and the Australian National University, previously by Engineers Australia. From 2011 onwards TNEP has been co-hosted by QUT, Curtin University and the University of Adelaide.